Questions begin over who would build Blues’ new ground
Championship side Birmingham City says it wants ambitious plans for a new stadium designed by Heatherwick Studio to be ready in time for the start of the 2030/31 season.
The club, currently sitting mid-table in England’s second tier, yesterday unveiled proposals for a 62,000-seat ground featuring a ring of towering chimney-like structures.
The plans would make it one of the country’s largest club grounds, eclipsing the capacities of Anfield and the Emirates, the homes of Liverpool and Arsenal respectively, as well as Everton’s new ground, built by Laing O’Rourke, which has a capacity of 52,000.
It would come in just below the capacity of the Tottenham Stadium, designed by Populous and built by Mace, which has a capacity of 62,850 and is considered a benchmark in stadia design.
The new ground at Bordesley Green has been designed in collaboration with US stadium specialist, Kansas-based Manica, which worked alongside Fosters on the stadium used in the final of the 2022 World Cup, and film director Steven Knight, the lead writer on the next James Bond film.
More than double the size of the club’s current 29,000-seat home ground at St Andrew’s, it would be the centrepiece of a proposed ‘sports quarter’ on the eastern side of the city which is envisaged to contain food markets, restaurants, cafes and children’s play areas.
The brick-faced chimneys are intended as an homage to the city’s industrial past and the site’s longstanding history of brick manufacturing.
They would serve multiple purposes including supporting the roof structure, housing stairwells and lifts, ventilation and channelling sound from the stadium bowl upwards to prevent noise pollution.
While much of the focus has been on the eye-catching chimneys, the question of who would build it remains unanswered.
One major contractor told Building “we aren’t interested” while another with stadia experience added: “The normal rules of engagement go out of the window on stadia. It’s not on our radar.”
The scheme would be competing with Manchester United’s plans to build a new ground which has seen only one firm publicly throw its hat into the ring – Laing O’Rourke. And Blues’ arch-rivals Aston Villa also have plans to increase capacity at its Viia Park ground in the coming years.
“An overseas firm could be an option,” added another firm. “But they don’t have the supply chain.”
>> See also: Manchester United wants to build a new stadium. Who would want to do the job?
>> See also: How Everton built their new stadium in just five years (Manchester United take note)
With the club’s American owners Knighthead wanting the stadium to be completed in less than five years, a public engagement on the plan is scheduled to start next year.
The scheme’s accelerated timeline comes a year and a half after Knighthead purchased a 48-acre former go-karting park in Bordesley for the new stadium and announced plans to move the club to the new location by August 2029.
Club chairman Tom Wagner admitted at the time that the timescale was “lunacy”, adding: “I’m going to keep saying it, even if it makes people sweat. A lot of it is outside of our control but that is the goal.”
Under Heatherwick’s plan, one of the chimneys would also house a lift to transport visitors to Birmingham’s highest bar, with views over the city and an immersive exhibition experience telling stories of the city’s past.
Heatherwick Studio founder Thomas Heatherwick said: “Too often, stadiums feel like spaceships that could have landed anywhere, sterilising the surrounding area. Ours grows from Birmingham itself – from its brickworks, its history of a thousand trades and the craft at the core of its culture.”
Responding to the designs of the new stadium, which were unveiled at an event in Digbeth yesterday to mark the club’s 150th anniversary, Wagner said the plans “reflect our ambition to compete at the highest level”.
Wagner has previously estimated the scheme and its wider mixed-use campus will cost between £2bn and £3bn, with the project estimated to contribute £760m annually to Birmingham’s economy by 2035.
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